(PART II.)
EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: The Elements of Will. By N. Lange.
CRITIQUE AND BIBLIOGRAPHY.
COMMON CHARACTERISTICS. Concerning the conflict with the Occident
in connection with the literary activity of a Slavophil. By V.
Rotzanow. The ethical doctrine of Count Tolstoi and its most
recent criticism. By P. E. Astafiew.
BOOK REVIEWS. Reviews of Russian philosophical works on Metaphysics, Logic, Psychology, Ethics, and Æsthetics. Reviews of foreign philosophical periodicals. Philosophical articles in Russian ecclesiastical periodicals.
MATERIALS FOR THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY IN RUSSIA. (1855-1888).
TRANSACTIONS OF THE MOSCOW PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
The distinguished Editor, Prof. N. Grote, in his introductory remarks calls attention to the fact that the present issue of this philosophical and literary review in the Russian language, completes the series that had been promised during the first year of its existence. The review does not claim, during this brief lapse of time, to have been able to solve all the many problems incident to the task that it had assumed at the outset of its career; but it may at least modestly claim to have won the hearty sympathy of an intelligent fraction of the Russian people, expressed by the acquisition of a comparatively large number of subscribers. This material success, moreover, attests the fact that the editor did not deceive himself when at the original publication of the review he seemed to notice an awakening in his country of more serious intellectual interests, and the rise of a desire for a philosophical analysis of the principles of knowledge and of life.
On the other hand, with regard to whether the problems treated of in the pages of the review are identical with those that occupy by preference the minds of intelligent Russian readers; or whether the exposition and the methods of investigation have been properly adjusted to the degree of development and to the mental calibre of the mass of its readers, it will suffice to remark, says the editor, that the full development of all the potential forces of nature and of mind can be attained only through slow and persistent action. We have to bear in mind that the attempt is by no means easy to organise for the first time in a project of this kind the many active workers of a country in which people had never before been associated in a similar undertaking. Yet in confidently entering upon the publication of this review, the editor well knew that there existed in Russia abundant intellectual powers, perfectly adequate to the demands of a high-class philosophical magazine—scientists, learned specialists, talented thinkers, and men of letters; and the review without doubt will not fail to enlist the valuable assistance of all these men in the arduous task, which it will continue steadily to pursue. The main task above all, is to advance the development of self-consciousness in modern Russian society, but the success of this aspiration depends of necessity on the continued sympathy and good will of the public.
As regards the external form of the review, for the greater convenience of the public, instead of four volumes of 20 sheets, as hitherto, there will be issued during the present year five volumes in all—one volume of 15-16 sheets bimonthly, except during the midsummer months.
The editor in conclusion expresses his acknowledgment to several of his western colleagues, to the editors of Mind, the Revue Philosophique, the Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, and The Open Court—all of whom have promised to note with genuine interest the contents of the Russian review "Questions of Philosophy and of Psychology." (Moscow, 1890.)